Highlights of Summer 2021 Outreach!

Girls of Steel has been 100% virtual since March 2020, but that hasn’t stopped our outreach efforts. This summer, we even expanded our reach by offering our first ever hackathon for students in grades K-8. We really miss meeting members of our community in person, but for now we are making excellent use of Zoom!

Virtual Girls of Steel Expo

We hosted our second annual virtual Expo on 8/8/2021 because of the circumstances with the COVID-19 pandemic. Originally designed as a variation of our annual GoS AI, Robotics, & STEM Symposium, this has become an informational session about our extensive FIRST programs and what it means to be a part of Girls of Steel. We received 26 registrations for the Expo and during the event we showed participants from grades K to 8 the program pyramid and explained how students can progress from FLL Explore to other FIRST teams. Additionally, we were able to give them an experience of what we actually do, where one of our members taught the basics of planning out designs by using demos of OnShape and TinkerCAD. We also held a Q & A at the end to answer any questions about GoS.

A link to the Expo presentation is here.

Virtual Introduction to Scratch Workshop

For the second year, we completed our successful virtual Introduction to Scratch Workshop from 8/9/21 – 8/13/2021, where students from 4 – 8 grade would meet for 1.5 hours each day with Girls of Steel members to learn about Scratch programming. We received 21 registrations for the camp, with 7 members from our team – Janise, Grace, Diya, Ashley, Aditri, Hannah, and Samhita – being their mentors during the 5 day camp.

This workshop was completely online, just like last year, and we utilized Google slideshows to teach the different aspects of coding, combined with Kahoots for comprehension and review of material, as well as tutorials and their own projects to earn experience with the language. Many of these students already were familiar with this platform, so this was an opportunity for them to practice their skills and continue evolving their programming creativity and understanding. By the end of the week, they were able to utilize every block provided in Scratch, where they showed off their own projects, whether it was a modification of a tutorial or their own innovative idea.

Virtual GoSHacks Jr.

From August 13-14, 2021, Girls of Steel successfully launched GosHacks Jr.– our first-ever hackathon– reaching 39 registered participants, receiving 20+ official project submissions, hosting 7 student-led workshops and panels with 6 Girls of Steel members – Janise, Aditri, Aria, Ashley, Diya, and Aditi – as mentors/guest speakers, and distributing $400+ in awards and prizes donated by GitHub and Girls of Steel. Participants were divided into three divisions: Division I (K-2), Division II (3-5), and Division III (6-8). A Grand Winner, First Runner-Up, and Second Runner-Up were selected from each division; additionally, the mentors selected a recipient of the Mentor’s Choice Award. Girls of Steel Hacks Jr. (GoSHacks Jr.) is a specialized virtual hackathon for students in grades K-8; GoSHacks Jr. aims to extend the opportunity for younger students in elementary and middle school to participate in hackathons, which are conventionally limited to older students. Read more about the Hackathon here.

Virtual FLL Skills workshop

The FLL Workshop was one of the summer workshops. It was held from August 16th-20th from 2 to 3:30 pm and allowed students to learn countless skills such as presenting, researching, problem solving, team work, and much more. We received 29 registrations for the camp and 7 Girls of Steel members – Justina, Kameron, Janise, Aditri, Ashley, Grace, and Diya – helped guide and teach the kids throughout the workshop. Everyday, we started off with a STEM trivia question. Then, we jumped into Pseudocode, VEXcode, the FLL Challenge Cargo Connect research project, reverse engineering of a LED flashlight, and core values, which were spread out through various days. Overall, it proved to be a great experience for both mentors and kids.